Republicans have a long love affair with executing people. They enjoy it so much that a conservative audience at a GOP Debate cheered for executions this past fall. Republicans also have a deep hatred for doctors who perform abortions. They hate it so much that they, led by Bill O’Reilly, actively targeted Dr. George Tiller until one conservative nut job murdered him inside a church. GOP lawmakers have sought to make it legal to kill abortion providers in several states such as South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa. Now a Republican lawmaker in North Carolina not only wants to execute abortion doctors, he wants to hang ’em.

State Rep. Larry Pittman wants to bring back public hangings as a form of execution, and he wants to tighten the noose around the necks of abortion providers. In an email sent to all the members of the general assembly, Pittman said:

??“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner. If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”

Just another bloodthirsty “pro-lifer.” Abortion is a legal procedure, one protected by the United States Constitution. If, in 2013, a Republican President takes office and the balance of the Supreme Court stays the same, there’s a chance that Rowe vs. Wade could be overturned. There’s a chance that abortion could be made a capitol offense in some states.

Hanging is one of the crueler forms of execution. When a person is dropped through the trap door of a gallows, their neck can snap. If the neck does not snap, the person is literally left hanging and writhing while they slowly get strangled to death. It’s rather gruesome and is a throwback penalty associated with the Old West.

For now, Pittman is just another crack-pot, determined to drive all OBGYNs who perform abortions out of the state (and probably succeeding), but the more crack-pots we allow to be elected, the better the odds that right-wing bloodlust will extend beyond abortion providers and onto women.